Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Game of Thrones: Season 1, Episode 10

"Fire and Blood"
So the axe dropped last episode, changing everything. The season finale deals with the aftermath, and sets the stage for what we'll see next year.

spoilers below the cut...

Jon Snow and his Night's Watch brother are heading north. His story was a slow starter, not really getting interesting until the end, and I would argue that his character was the driving personality of this episode. I heard an interesting theory regarding his mother recently.

Arya is disguised as a boy and being snuck away from King's Landing with criminals and misfits bound for The Wall. Some of that was actually from the second book which I just started re-reading after watching the final episode. Let me take a quote:

“Hey, Lumpyface, you gimme that sword.” His hair was the color of straw, his fat face all sunburnt and peeling. “You don’t know how to use it.”

Yes I do, Arya could have said. I killed a boy, a fat boy like you, I stabbed him in the belly and he died, and I’ll kill you too if you don’t let me alone. Only she did not dare. Yoren didn’t know about the stableboy, but she was afraid of what he might do if he found out.

Apparently TV Arya wasn't afraid! Her story is just getting started, and the reason I'm most excited about the next season.

Having read the story, Sansa was always my least favorite character... she just came off as so naively stupid to me. The showrunners have made her more sympathetic, and Sansa's scene where Joffrey forces her to view her father's head... the actress's defiant delivery of "How long do I have to look?" actually made me like her. Wow.

The scene with Pycelle just seemed really random. Did we at any point who all was making claims to the throne? I felt like that was an interesting point that should have been addressed... but maybe i got distracted. How evil is Joffrey? Man, people are hating that kid right now.

Tyrion has been appointed to go to King's Landing and take his father's place as Hand, and will be sneaking his prostitute with him against his father's wishes. But the scene that snuck most in my mind was Tyrion seemingly blown away by the faith his father placed in him.

And that final scene... wow... Dany in the remains of the fire, her clothes (but not her hair... but she's beautiful so I'll forgive it) burned off and our first glimpse of those dragons. How could you not want more after that final scene? Daenerys is such a show stealer. I have a friend, I kid you not, she went and bought the second book and just read the Daenerys chapters. She was very disappointed, because there were only four.

This shot was my second choice.... keeping it PG. ;)

After a five-year wait, Martin is finally releasing his fifth book next week.... I've forgotten some of what happened, so I'm slowly re-reading. Several characters were left out of the fourth book, so when i finally get to the fifth, it will be the first I've read of Jon Snow, Daenerys, and Tyrion since the third book came out ELEVEN YEARS AGO. So my hopes are kind of high. :)

Yeah, the Pycelle scene was just WTF to me. Pycelle is one of those minor characters that actually makes large waves without most people noticing, but I think nude aerobics is a poor way of presenting that. Apparently Rose the whore is the character that every other character makes monologues to. I prefer Rose the Exposition Whore to Shae the FUNNAH WHOOOA. Worst Character Translation from Book to Screen definitely goes to Shae.